THE LATEST NEWS FROM DECEMBER 2004
Christmas is a time of peace and goodwill – unless you’re in the ruthless business of selling consoles. That’s probably why the PS2, still comfortably ahead of its rivals, boasted so many compelling exclusives. Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas was “bigger, more diverse and more freeform than any other videogame”, according to the Official Playstation 2 Magazine, which gave it 10/10. Edge’s 9/10 review noted that despite flaws, the game was “buoyed by the kind of ambition that sees most games crumbling under the weight of it all”. Gamesmaster added a 98% score to the list of accolades too – all of which made rival crime sim The Getaway: Black Monday (3/10 Edge, 8/10 OPS2, 71% GM) look rather second rate. Fans of manly grappling could pick up WWE Smackdown Vs Raw (8/10 OPS2, 88% GM). Jak 3 (6/10 Edge, 8/10 OPS2, 86% GM) and Ratchet & Clank 3 (8/10 Edge, 9/10 OPS2, 90% GM) had the kids covered for platforming and shooting, and families could get together with Singstar Party (8/10 OPS2, 82% GM) or Eyetoy Play 2 (8/10 Edge, 8/10 OPS2, 84% GM).
At a time when every publisher looked to bring out their big guns, Halo 2 certainly featured plenty of them. According to the Official
Xbox Magazine, the long awaited exclusive “doesn’t try to revolutionise the FPS”, but instead “takes all the features the fans loved and gives them a fresh and crowd-pleasing upgrade”, which was good for a full 10/10 score. Edge felt that the game’s ending was so abrupt that
“it is likely that the one overriding emotion you’ll feel on completion is that of having been cheated”, but that the combat “continues to amaze” and gave the game 9/10. Gamesmaster
also awarded the game 95%. Also prominent this holiday season was
Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic II - The Sith Lords. The RPG sequel earned 9.3/10 from OXM,
which felt that it “takes all that was good from KOTOR, places it in a far more oppressive place, then throws you in to deal with it”.
Over on the Gamecube, Nintendo was pinning its hopes on Metroid
Prime 2: Echoes, the sequel to its stunning first-person adventure. This earned 8/10 from Edge and 90% from
Gamesmaster, but the highest praise came from NGC, which awarded the game 94% and praised the “gradual sense of empowerment” and the
“scale and imagination” of the game, while criticising its dark environments.
Paper Mario: The Thousand Year
Door scored 8/10 in Edge and 91% in NGC. It also received 90% from
Gamesmaster, which enjoyed the “depth of character rarely seen since
Wind Waker”. RPG fans could also opt for Namco’s Tales Of Symphonia (84% NGC, 84% GM), now officially available in the UK.
Those preferring to play on computers would likely have been lured by the charms of Football Manager 2005, hailed by PC Gamer as “a new name for a blissful, unrelenting obsession”, in a 90% review. The strategically inclined may also have been tempted by Rollercoaster
Tycoon 3 (88% PC Gamer, 84% GM), while those up for multiplayer carnage would have enjoyed Tribes: Vengeance (7/10 Edge, 88% PC Gamer). Of course, some players just needed to escape to a new world – maybe that of Final Fantasy XI (8/10 Edge, 90% Gamesmaster) or A Tale In The Desert II (83%, PC Gamer).
The big multiplatform releases were predominantly sequels too. Prince Of Persia: The Warrior Within (7/10 Edge, 9/10 OPS2, 91% PC Gamer) offered an edgier, more combat oriented take on the action adventure formula, Tony Hawk’s Underground 2 (8/10 OPS2, 8.5/10 OXM, 82% NGC) continued open world extreme sports and Mortal Kombat: Deception (8.9/10 OXM, 80%
GM) further refined the series in 3D. X-men Legends (6/10 OPS2, 8.5/10 OXM, 80% NGC) offered a surprisingly good blend of beat-’em-up and RPG,
Need For Speed Underground 2
(8/10 OPS2, 7.5/10 OXM, 69% NGC) provided reasonable neon-lit street racing, and Goldeneye: Rogue Agent (5/10 Edge, 60% GM) disappointed everyone by not being the N64 game.
Game Boy Advance owners were treated to The Legend Of Zelda: The Minish Cap, a classic 2D entry filled with size-shifting shenanigans, which scored 91% in both Gamesmaster and NGC, with the latter noting that despite an early feeling that “it’s all too familiar”, the game “rarely fails to surprise”. Treasure’s beat-’em-up sequel Advance Guardian Heroes
(6/10 Edge, 74% NGC) suffered performance problems, but Astro
Boy: Omega Factor (89% NGC) was amongst the developer’s best ever games. Even N-gage owners got a treat too, as the wartime strategy game Pathway To Glory earned 8/10 in Edge, which praised the “surprisingly gutsy” presentation and an interface described as “a masterpiece of functional minimalism”.
Speaking of portable gaming, both new handhelds hit Japan this month. The Nintendo DS got off to a slow start on 2 December, while Sony’s PSP launched to first day sales of 200,000 units ten days later. UK magazines had still yet to review anything on import, so that will have to wait for 2005 – and that’s where we’ll pick up next time.